Smooth Snake

Coronella austriaca, gladde slang, culebra lisa europea, coronelle lisse, schlingnatter

A snake so smooth it could slide right through your DMs. That would be shame and great loss, because if you get to know them, you’d realize just how cute and interesting they are. Called smooth in about every language in Europe, except for German (who would suspect anything different from them), you probably start asking why. Why does this beautiful creature have such a cool name? Is it because of its natural charisma, way of seduction, way of moving, does it have a smooth way of swallowing prey or is it just because these snakes are shiny and slick? At first glance an inconspicuous reptile, the smooth snake has more secrets to offer than you’d expect.

Build

Like all snakes, these smooth ones rock an elegant tube-like body. They have scales instead of hair to protect from the environment. Those scales are made up of keratin, the same as our nails and hair. Imagine being completely covered in nails. Go even further, no arms or legs. Congratulations, you sort of understand what it is like to be a snake now.

Our friends the smooth snakes are small colubrids, which means they come from a very large family. In fact, the largest family of known snakes. This family is different from others because they only need one lung to breath. For some reason they chose to keep the right lung and reduce or remove the left one. These family members have no teeth on the premaxilla (the part in front of the upper jaw or maxilla) and have fewer scales on their head and belly. Most members are non-venomous, but that doesn’t mean there are no toxic cousins at the dinner table.

Although their common name is what draws the attention first, their scientific name is quite fun as well. Coronella translates to coronet from Latin. A coronet is a type of crown, which the darker symbol on their top scale on the head resembles. Other ways to recognize them is thick black line going from the nostrils, through the eyes to a little beyond their neck. They have quite a dull colour pattern, grey, dark grey, brown, dirt red (which is just another word for brow) with two rows of black, non-round dots along their back.

Behaviour

One of the cool things about the smooth snake is that although the colubrid family consists of egg-laying (oviparous) species, the smooth snake does it a bit differently. Instead of laying eggs or birthing live young (viviparous), they do something in between, they keep their eggs inside their body until the young are ready to come out. They don’t lay eggs, but the embryo still develops inside one, this is called ovoviviparous. Fun fact for at a family gathering for you.

Another fun fact is that they like to eat everything they can catch, including but not limited to lizards, eggs and other snakes. They even eat their own kind sometimes. However, do not feed them any veggies, they aren’t build for that. Fruits are off the table as well.

How do they catch their food you ask. Well, as they are non-venomous, it doesn’t kill by striking its prey and injecting a toxin. And even though the German name Schlingnatter or intertwining/weaving snake might suggest otherwise, it doesn’t actually strangle its prey either. This slithering casanova’s approach to killing is a little more alternative. By which I mean it often doesn’t bother. While hunting, it cautiously closes the distance between them and their prey. When they get within biting range, it strikes fast and entangles the prey within its own body. This might look like strangling, but it isn’t. The snake eats the prey alive. While the curling body prevents the victim from fleeing, the backwards pointing teeth in the mouth of the snake, pull the struggling creature in. This means two things: it suffocates the prey by eating it and they didn’t get their name because of their eating habits.

Habitat

Homestead

The smooth snake can be found all over Europe’s mainland and in parts of Western Asia. Apparently the snake has a big fear of crossing salt water as it doesn’t appear on most islands in the Mediterranean sea and only in the utmost Southern part of the UK.

As most animals, the smooth snake prefers south or south-east facing slopes to take a nice sunbath and warm up. If the slope has a dense herbal (grasses, flowers) plant life and some bigger trees on it, it’s smooth snake heaven. The slope makes for a great drainage system. The smooth snake thrives best in a moist and cool environment.These snakes need soil suitable for burrowing and lots of low vegetation for them to hide in, because they are mostly cowards. To conclude, the best place to find them is on South facing grassland slopes with some shrubbery and near dense woodland.

Encounter

If you’ve never seen one in real life, don’t worry, that’s normal. The smooth snake is a rather shy creature that likes to spend most of its time hiding away. When they get scared their first reaction is to stiffen up completely. This makes them remarkably hard to see. However, if you were to come across one, please don’t be scared and kill it! Either leave it be or just look at it and enjoy the beauty of nature. Now, of course I know not all of you are going to take my advice, so if you really can’t help yourself from touching it, do it safely. Pick up the snake carefully and make sure it can curl up around your arm, hand or fingers. If it bites, put it down, if it doesn’t, rejoice because you have a new snake friend.

Name

As promised, the explanation of the dope name these snakes got when they were discovered. Although they have charisma to boot and could probably seduce any nature-loving member of society into holding them tight, their rugged sex-appeal is not why they are named smooth. The reason for that is a little more boring. The scales on their back don’t have a keel, they are flat. They are called smooth, because they feel smooth. Can confirm, very smooth. My apologies to disappoint you, but apparently herpetologists don’t have the same sense of humor as ornithologists. Maybe that is why everyone likes birds and so few people love reptiles.

Thank you for reading, hope you return next week.